the dress

I’m going to be honest. Next month we will be celebrating our five year wedding anniversary, and for the past four and a half years my wedding dress has been in a bag in the corner of our bedroom. Woo! It feels good to get that off my chest. It’s a sort of “Hi my name is Sarah, and I fell of the bridal bandwagon”, beginning-of-meeting type introduction.

So, “why?” you may ask. Why was I not on top of my bridal game right after our honeymoon, tidying up all of the loose ends of our picture perfect wedding day? Didn’t it bother me to see my much loved wedding dress collecting dust in a yellowing bag? Why had it become an acceptable place for Charlotte to take her (now very fancy) afternoon naps? The truth is, I don’t really have answers to any of these things. Dealing with my dress had simply become one of those life things that I told myself I would get to. Eventually. It would cause a mini guilt-building anxiety attack every time I walked by it. (Which happened about 15-20 times a day). I didn’t know what I wanted to do with it, so the thing I chose to do was ignore it. I had literally put it in the corner to try and pretend it wasn’t there, but the problem was that a giant, tulle trimmed dress was a little too conspicuous to hide in any corner.

In January, I (like most people resolving to make changes for the new year) set out to make a list. But this time, I decided to make it a little less daunting, and assign one thing of the “guilt-building anxiety attack” variety per month. This included random things like finally digitizing the crates of CDs that sit in our garage, and getting all of my iPhone pictures printed out before I lost them for good. February’s task was finally dealing with THE DRESS. So at the beginning of the month I sat down to do some research and figure out what I wanted to do with it. Would I donate it? Try to sell it? Get it preserved? When I finally made a point of sitting down to consider all of my options the choice was easy. I really couldn’t get over the idealistic notion of having a little girl who would one day beg to play dress up in it. Watching with wide eyes as I took the box down from whatever high shelf it had been hidden away on, and touching each of the sewn on pearls with the gentlest touch of appreciation. To her, this would not simply be a dress, but proof that her mom was at one time a princess. And wasn’t a moment like that in the future worth a little bit of work right now?

Needless to say, I got my dress preserved. It now sit’s in a museum-like box, cleaned and folded like it is in it’s own mini storefront window. And now every time I walk past it I feel a sense of accomplishment instead of guilt. I tell you this story not because I think every single bride should save her dress, but because I know you have (at LEAST) one of these things. One of those “every time you see it you feel a bit of dread” kind of things. And I’m here to tell you that the actual process of dealing with that guilt-inducing project or thing is a million times better than putting yourself though that anxiety every day. In other words, you know that thing you’ve been wanting to do? Simply GO DO IT.

I hope that you take a little bit of time today to start on the path towards conquering one of the things on YOUR mental to-do list today, and I would love to hear about your progress! As for me, I’m off to work on my next step. Getting my boxed wedding dress out of the corner. . . .

Love + Laughs,

Sarah